What is the best order to install the Rockwell stuff if starting all from scratch?
FT Activation Server
FT SE
RSLogix5000
RSLinx
RSLogix500
RSNetworx
CC Workbench?
IMO It depends.
How do you plan to do your activation? Are you locking them to the guest or the host?
Here is what I typically do.
I install my activations to the guest so in the VM itself and do so with a blank VM and then build it up from there with snap shots. I install each package then reboot then snapshot then instal another title and I try to group revs together by major rev or CPR number.
Like with FTview SE in the same VM I have several snapshots with different versions of FT View SE from 5.0,5.10.6.00 etc
I also have different machines from major vendors like siemens, rockwell, Omron, etc and then have version snaphots in each machine.
You can do some intense things with snapshot branching.
You can make a snapshot per customer if you want and if you have open liscense for the OS you can roll that snapshot only to it's own machine if the need ever comes like giving it to a co worker to go service a customer that you normally deal with etc.
Again it depends on your needs really and the size of your company and you customer base and the types of industry or industries you work in.and also the types of storage and OS license structure you have etc.
Kinda like your desktop pc no 2 people normally have the same setup and config it is a little or a lot custom based on their needs.
A question only you can really answer
P.S. if you are getting into this I will give you some good advice backup that VM often to a NAS or server or something and If budget allows something like Veeam which will do accurate inremental and reverse incremental bacvkups of VM's is a lifesaver and will make things easy for you to keep your data safe.
I recommend a daily incremental where possible and a weekly full and I would retain no less than 3 fulls if possible to be really safe IMO.